November 17, 2010

I really can't recommend more enthusiastically the array of musical treasures on display in this week's Motherlode:

• Raw and raucous salsa bands laying down dancefloor killers

• Tripped out Jamaicans promoting a very different kind of high

• A gang of Detroit punks shredding guitars on the other side of the tracks

• Middle Eastern maestros playing elegant music for a courtly crowd

• Down-home wailers from the Southwest Louisiana prairie, making music like their very lives depend on it

If were a travel agent, I'd bump you right up to first class. If I were a lunch lady, I'd slop your tray with extra mystery meat. If I were a priest, I'd let you sin nine ways to Sunday. But I'm not any of them types. I'm a DJ. With a record bag ready to burst, I'm a Johnny Appleseed of sound, hoping to plant some tunes in your head.

Barrio BlastersDig salsa? The twenty hard-charging scorchers on these two volumes are a stone-cold must-have. With the master tapes of these little-known gems lost to the winds, many of the crackly tracks here sound as if mastered from some dude's well-loved collection of vinyl 45s. And you know what? It sounds better this way. Back when these volumes were first released, Dave Hucker in the The Beatdescribed the compilations as the salsa equivalent to Lenny Kaye's Nuggets releases.

Just Say YesProduced by Mighty Diamond stallwart Bunny Simpson, this 1979 album opens to strains of the Muppet Show theme (originally Piero Umiliani's "Mah Nà Mah Nà") and closes with a jaunty chanter in which the lead singer repeats the phrase "take L.S.D." thirty times in just over three minutes. Bunny claims it was his idea to match up the deejay Trinity with the Diamonds harmony trio—a vocal-style mashup not before attempted on record—and the results are brilliant.

Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?When this insanely good self-titled LP from 1970 was reissued (along with a later platter) on Funky Delicacies' The Folks from Mother's Mixer, it made my "Favorites of 2005" list. Read here.

Oud to the Last DropEarlier this year Bilongo69, at the enchanting blog Anthems for the Nation of Luobaniya, posted all five of EMI Pathé's 1974 Arabesque series, which presents virtuosic performances of Arabic oud, flute and zither music. First read the introductory post, then go devour the whole lot of them.

Blue on the BayouTwo of the earliest superstars of cajun music, Amédé Ardoin and Cleoma Falcon both started recording in the late 1920s—the African-American Amédé most often teamed up with white fiddler Dennis McGee, and Cleoma almost exclusively in tandem with her accordion-playing husband Joe Falcon—and both died in 1941: Cleoma of complications following a car wreck; Amédé of complications following a savage mauling by a racist mob.

WSM Blues is Chuck Bills' tribute to his favorite radio station, Nashville's famed WSM (650 AM), which is probably best known for hosting the Grand Ole Opry show for decades. Under the right conditions, WSM can be heard in 38 states due to its extraordinarily powerful 50000 watt signal and the fact that it's a clear channel station, meaning no other US stations share that specific frequency.

Since 1979, WSM has been a full-time country station featuring a pretty impressive array of classics and deep catalog country, bluegrass and Americana music. One program that I can highly recommend is recording artist Jim Lauderdale's weekly program, The Jim Lauderdale Show, which broadcasts live and streams over the internet each Wednesday at 2PM Nashville time. On a recent show, he kicked off with a couple Buck Owens songs and a pair of Reno & Smiley numbers, before treating listeners to Bobby Bare's hit version of Streets of Baltimore, which was followed by a Jimmie Rodgers song from about 1930. As far as I can tell, there's no playlist - just a knowlegeable and passionate DJ playing music he loves, kind of like what happens on WFMU. And like WFMU, WSM features archived programming on their website, although navigating the WSM website can be a bit of a challenge.

Here's a good example of how engaging WSM's programming can be. A couple of months ago on an excursion to Nashville, I heard weeknight DJ Eddie Stubbs spin The Shoe Goes On The Other Foot Tonight by Marty Robbins. That alone was enough to put a big smile on my face, but after the song, I could scarcely believe it when he called to listeners' attention Bill Johnson's sensational steel guitar solo. Where else do DJs on commercial radio stations take the time to point out such artistry? Then, I was positively dumbfounded when Stubbs said "let's hear that great steel solo again" and joined the song in progress and proceeded to play the solo all over again. Brilliant! Here's the steel guitar solo that prompted Stubbs' salute:

Hear It: An MP3 of Bill Johnson's spectacular steel guitar solo from the 1966 recording of The Shoe Goes On The Other Foot Tonight.

And below, you can see Bill Johnson in action playing the same solo live in a clip taken from The Marty Robbins Show (1969).

The clip above was borrowed from the YouTube channel of tarquin45, which I cannot recommend highly enough. It's a superb archive featuring a incredible wealth of extremely rare Marty Robbins footage.

November 16, 2010

Marnie Stern shreds, but when you hear how great her songs are, that's almost besides the point. A late bloomer to the rock world... She released her first album on Kill Rock Stars, In Advance of the Broken Arm, in 2007, when she was thirty-one years old. But that's besides the point too. The point is that Marnie Stern, with drummer Zach Hill at her side, is a real progressive punker, making music that warbles your mind and kicks your ass... but makes you feel good too. Within her music she quotes Marchel Duchamp, Allen Watts, Back to the Future, and Mark Twain with equal ease and applies finger tapping with such a coolness and familiarity that people who show off that stuff just look silly in comparison...

Her latest album, the self titled Marnie Stern, is a bit different than her previous two releases, delving into a deep emotional core that causes the album as a whole to swell into more "song-y" sort of manners--- though the drumming of Zach Hill and Marnie's persistent playing keep the record in line with her other two releases. It's definitely a great record.

"The fire had burned to coals and he lay looking up at the stars in their places and the hot belt of matter that ran the chord of the dark vault overhead and he put his hands on the ground at either side of him and pressed them against the earth and in that coldly burning canopy of black he slowly turned dead center to the world, all of it taut and trembling and moving enormous and alive under his hands" - Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses).

All of these recordings were found in the same dusty cardboard box. Having received these and many others as a gift from a friend, I culled through them right away. Initially I was to include a variety of other findings, but for some reason, these all stick together in my mind. See if you agree:

1) Orson Welles - "War of the Worlds" - an excerpt from the October 30th, 1938 live radio broadcast (Longines Symphonette Society, 1968).

This end of the world story famously caused listeners throughout the US to fear for their lives, resulting in panic and even attempted suicide. An example of "seeing the fire" through listening. I chose to excerpt nothing from the actual story, but only Welle' introduction. Should we listen this way; should we see the train in the Lumiere Brothers film coming out of the screen toward us; should we see and hear it so?

2) "Whispering Pages" - a sound document of the making of Alexander Sokurov's film (Eskom\North Foundation, 1993?)

To me, a continuation of Welles' "solar drift wood." A distant bell, and boats sounding; should they be imagined in sight, or only heard? The title itself, "Whispering Pages" suggests a rustling sound, a faint letting out.

Baje One of Brooklyn rap duo Junk Science recently launched his own label for his projects and his friends called Modern Shark. He came down to WFMU and treated the Coffee 2 Go podcast to some goodies and Brooklyn bagels! Be sure to download part one of a one part mini series of tunes from the Modern Shark label.

November 15, 2010

This Monday 11/15, from noon to 3 PM, Irene Trudel's show will feature a visit from Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur. Kweskin, the founder of the old-timey-style Kweskin Jug Band, has his roots in traditional folk singing and guitar; tenor and Jug Band member Geoff Muldaur is also a solo performer, writer, and producer. They will talk with Irene and share some songs.

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Diane Kamikaze will welcome Easy Action!, the Detroit rock band that features the primal-sounding vocals of John Brannon (Negative Approach, Laughing Hyenas). Catch their mesmerizing onslaught on Tuesday 11/16 from noon to 3 PM, while they are in town for a couple of local shows. You can also go see them at the Acheron on Monday the 15th, or at Asbury Lanes on Thursday the 18th.

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Ken and Andy are at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater on Wednesday 11/17. Listen to or attend their live broadcast of Seven Second Delay from 6 to 7 PM -- the theater is located at 307 West 26th St. in Manhattan, and admission is $5. Guests will include Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT; Dan Okrent, NYT ombudsman and the inventor of fantasy baseball; and gambling expert and former bookie Beth Raymer.

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On The Evan "Funk" Davies Show Wednesday night, Evan presents a live set of edgy pop from Persephone's Bees. The group, who recently moved to NYC after 10 years of success in San Francisco, have been compared to the Cardigans and Komeda... they have a single titled "Ugly Thing" out now in anticipation of their forthcoming album of the same name. Catch them at the Delancey the night before (11/16), then hear them on WFMU on 11/17 from 9 to midnight.

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Timmy "Vulgar" Lampinen (Clone Defects, Epileptix, Timmy's Organism) and Human Eye will join Jason Sigal on Talk's Cheap -- Thursday morning 11/18 from 9 to noon -- to play live. Tune in and hear why this Detroit band are being hailed as true champions of avant-garde punk. For those who crave the in-person experience, Human Eye are also playing a show at Brooklyn's Knitting Factory on the 17th.

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Thursday afternoon 11/18, from noon to 3 PM, Joe Belock brings the Brian Wilson Shock Treatment to Three Chord Monte. The untamed psych-/garage-rockers' latest album, Druid Time Lords, is out on Slutfish Records with themes of insanity, love, death, and outer space. Fans of Sabbath and Hawkwind, along with all '60s psych rock enthusiasts, are likely to appreciate.

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Scott McDowell will have the West Coast duo Barn Owl on to play songs from their new Thrill Jockey album Ancestral Star. Evan Caminiti and Jon Porras craft a blend of drone and jam with guitars, vox, drums, and harmonium -- catch their transcendence the night before at Issue Project Room, and then on The Long Rally Friday morning 11/19, from 9 AM to noon.

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On Saturday morning, Michael Shelley interviews Gary Lachman (aka Gary Valentine), the original bass player for Blondie. Lachman, an author of many books including New York Rocker: My Life in the Blank Generation, talks to Michael on Saturday 11/20, from 11 AM to 1 PM.

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Finally, please enjoy an awesome live remote broadcast of the Cherry Blossom Clinic at Public Assembly! On Saturday afternoon, 11/21, from 3 to 6 PM, Terre T will be DJing at the Williamsburg club's Hullaballoo All-Day Soiree, introducing performances by the excellent bands Split Signals and The Above. Doors will open at 2 PM -- enjoy food, drinks, and shopping for vintage clothes and records. Then dance late into the night. Details are here!

The "Amanda" recordings have emerged as an unexpected cult sensation on my WFMU program over the past two years. The chronicles feature Amanda Whitt, a growling (think Cookie Monster), defiant pre-pubescent with a Southern twang spewing mayhem over 1980s breakbeats and disjointed shards of pop hits. On some tracks Amanda shrieks while clanging pots & pans. The recordings exude undeniable charm, but there's nothing cute about it. Any sentient adult witnessing this behavior would commence punitive action or summon law enforcement.

Power-child Amanda was recorded between 1986-89 at home in Alabama, between ages 8 and 11, by her older (by 7 or 8 years) brother Joseph (a.k.a. Jody). Joseph and Amanda were a couple of hyperactive kids pretending to be, respectively, a music video director and a child star. Most recordings were captured on cassette, others on video cam, in the lowest of lo-fi. The duo sometimes enlisted friends in the frolics, and often drove their parents crazy (with incidents caught on tape). The most durable performances were titled (e.g., "The Pickle People," "Horrible Hybrid Tulips," "Indian Hoots Echo Baby," "Me Swinging in Cookieland") and compiled on "albums," whose design awkwardly replicated the commercial cassette format. Inserts were pasted up and xeroxed, and collections assigned titles (e.g., Primitive Swagger, Monumental Whopper Turmoil Jam, Empires and 5th Dimension Perspective, and Worship Me). The recordings were not circulated beyond friends.

November 14, 2010

Listeners to Thunk Tank know that we’ve progressed pretty far with our Putin fan fiction project. Besides the regular “Salutin’ Putin” feature, we’ve done an entire Salutin’ Putin show and also interviewed Sam Derse, the guy who does Vladimir Putin Action Comics. We’ve even started a Saturday morning cartoon spin-off called The Putin Pals, featuring all Putin’s animal companions. Or at least all the ones we’ve made up so far. But it turns out Putin has many, many animal friends in his so-called “reality” as well.

Just yesterday, at the signing ceremony for an agreement between Russia and Bulgaria for the construction of the Bulgarian section of the South Stream gas transit pipeline—a gazillion-mile–long pipe between Novorosiysk and Greece and Italy and Austria—Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Borisov gave Putin a big, adorable, fuzzy puppy. Putin, you know, kissed it, and made the facial expression he believes best expresses “happy.”

The best thing about the RIA Novosti coverage of the puppy presentation was that it listed all the animals Putin already owns. It reminded me of that DirectTV commercial with the Russian guy who talks like a cheezburger cat: “Opulence. I has it.” So now here is a quiz for you, with two lists: one of Putin’s pets, the animals he actually owns, and the other a list of The Putin Pals, his animal companions in the sparkly world of bare-chested awesomeness. Can you tell which is which?

Katherine Young stopped by WFMU recently to record a set of solo bassoon music, much of the material drawn from her amazing 2009 Porter Records album, Further Secret Origins. And what are the origins of Katherine's playing? It's amazing to think of the territory she's blazing when it comes to the basson, a mellifluous instrument with a rather boring past. Sun Ra featured a bassoon now and then, and there's free jazz bassoonist Karen Borca, wife of Jimmy Lyons, and that's where my knowledge of interesting bassoonists ends.

Katherine's compositions, style and sound go futher, and her influences and musical experience are wide. She composes and performs in an array of chamber music, new music and improv settings with interesting collaborators. She's an erstwhile member of The Nightingales, the early-'80s UK punk band that was one of John Peel's favorite bands. She's played and recorded with members of Faust. And she's an ongoing member of Anthony Braxton's Falling River Quartet.

Does that list of collaborators tip you off to her sound? Probably not. Compositionally rich and sonically diverse, the tunes heard here are drawn from a bassoon and a bunch of effects pedals, nothing more. Big thanks to Mark Koch for engineering.

Katherine is doing a dual-headed solo tour going on now with the trumpet player Jacob Wick, heading south from Brooklyn. Remaining dates after the fold.

It was close to 30 years ago that I first heard Barbara and the Boys’ immortal 45, “Hooty Sapperticker”, on the Dr. Demento show. Many years later, it was mentioned prominently in Dave Barry’s series of columns (and book) on the worst records ever made, and it continues to hold that status for many who have heard it. Why that is mystifies me – I consider it inspired idiocy, along the lines of Alfred E. Neuman’s “It’s a Gas” and “The Blob” by The Five Blobs – the sort of ridiculous rock and roll record that I can listen to over and over again without ever growing tired of it. It’s certainly far better than any number of highly regarded “serious” rock and roll records that I could take up the rest of this page listing. It was also co-written, by the way, by the Sherman Brothers, who would soon go on to great success in a series of films and other projects for Walt Disney. This single has been shared on many sites (although not here), but because of what came next in my search for a copy, I’m sharing it here, as well:

Over the last several years, I have periodically looked for a copy of this 45, without success. It occasionally shows up for auction on eBay and other sites, but typically goes for far more than I’m willing to pay for a single 45, particularly not one I've had on tape since the '80's. Thanks to a like-minded collector friend, I now have the high quality MP3 of it, shared above. But in seeking out this 45, I’ve come across some interesting facts. First, at least a few DJ’s across the country (including Chicago's legendary Dick Biondi) were in the habit of using the name Hooty Sapperticker in running gags, during the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s. At least one even had a jingle using the name, although it apparently was not the tune heard on either of the records I’m sharing here today.

Finally, and most surprisingly, my search led to a 45 from about 1967, by Andy Rose and the Thorns. This record has the same title but is otherwise unrelated to Barbara and the Boys’ record. While I wouldn’t put it in the same league as its '50's namesake, in terms of appeal or quality, it has its own charms as well:

"It is no disgrace to be a Negro, but it is very inconvenient." - Bert Williams, vaudeville star

"Pigmeat Markham was many things: the ranking funny man on the Avenue, a hero to young fans, the Judge. He was also a curious anomaly, the last great black comic to perform in burnt cork." - R.J. Smith, author

"I'd been working in blackface for so many years that I was scared to go on without it." - Pigmeat Markham

Pigmeat Markham was probably the only African-American comedian equally as popular in 1939 as he was in 1969. In that thirty year span the inroads made by African-American performers, and black America as a whole, was immense. Media that had shunned an entire race slowly heralded new opportunities thanks to several years of organized protest. In the decades before this crest emerged, a tight-knit collection of black actors had been typecast by Hollywood's studio system into bland, subservient bit parts; the only roles that a racist Hollywood would allow. Progressive activists from the black community set their sights on the major film studios, radio stations and television networks, demanding that the demeaning roles be eradicated. Slowly Hollywood conceded and eliminated the racist typecasting in the early fifties, but they failed to replace such parts with an honest representation of black America. Instead they would dispense with black actors altogether. As a result, the few black actors that had actually managed to make a living in the industry were thrown into unemployment. When the gains of minority activism intensified in the late sixties creating new, substantial opportunities for African-American entertainers, that tight-knit collection of working black actors were mostly too old, too poor or too forgotten to take advantage.

Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham was an exception. At a time when the call of "black power" resonated from Watts to Vietnam, Markham's lowbrow style of vaudeville had an unexpected resurgence. Revamping the tired sketches he had used for years, most of which had originally been performed in blackface, Markham helped bridge the tension between races with his unlikely blend of anachronistic comedy. A few decades prior Pigmeat had all but been eliminated from the scene by the influential NAACP and Urban League. He emerged in the late sixties as an African-American cultural force. When H. Rap Brown, Fred Hampton or Bobby Seale clenched a fist and shouted "black power" it is unlikely they had a vaudeville veteran that steadfastly refused to stop performing in blackface in mind. Pigmeat Markham was an unapologetic proponent of blackface and one of the most popular African-American comedians the country has ever seen.

November 13, 2010

For me they are bigger than the individual camps of vernacular North American music such as bluegrass and country, more of a bridge to a more old time form of communication and song traveling, what they used to call 'folk' in the 1940's, before it became 'country'. Carter and Ralph Stanley always stuck with a clean, simple, not so testosterone-driven style as what became bluegrass, partly because they were less an intrumental band than a storytelling one. As I delve deeper and deeper into the past recorded history of 'country' music forms, their work seems more and more to be a perfect concoction of what A. P. Carter began to do when he streamlined and smoothed-out the bumpy and briar-y stuff of deep woods and mountain musics.

Not that I necessarily think that that is the 'correct' way forward for the bumpy and briar-y bits- I love the more old time songs that have unusual timings and idiosyncratic flow which might make them seem more distant or hard to play or get a modern head around. But something about the purity of Carter Stanley's songcrafting has attached itself rather deeply to me.

Since it was through some links on WFMU that I really began to dredge a huge, monolithic amount of old-time folk idioms from off of the internet, I wanted to put up a link today that brings this full circle again. I've always been a collector and scholar of vernacular American musics, and as we know, sometimes when you find a site online that presents a load of albums and 78's that cater directly to your whims, they can disappear overnight, leaving you wishing you'd heard that elusive rare vinyl that you hadn't downloaded and absorbed yet. Because so much of it is rarther obscure and seemingly 'not in copyright' this area of websites is really popping right now, with a lot of unusual and rare old albums and 78's (yay!) being put up at a rate faster than I can even hope to hear. This is all great- it helps my personal songwriting and performing tremendously to hear wild and different versions of 'familiar' songbook pieces (Wildwood Flower alone is available in a bizarre number of renditions, of course, many of them completely removed from the Carter Family's source inspiration), and amazing 'new' old pieces that move me a great deal keep turning up. As one who doesn't read music, being able to hear the records, along with my old songbook and hymnal studies helps me understand these a lot better.

So, today I want to pass along a newish site that is being moderated by some madman that puts up incredible amounts of stuff daily, some sort of cornpone country robot with an itchy clicking finger and way too many records! Seriously, if you dig this stuff, check it out here. Here are two mp3s recently culled from some rather rare old Stanley Brothers lps I found there; a rather perky rendition of a house favorite, Angel Band, and their 1960's version of Keep on the Sunny Side. Enjoy.

November 11, 2010

Melbourne, Australia's Fabulous Diamonds have haunted the periphery of my consciousness from the get-go. Too subtle to beg or demand notice, their charms are more a natural ooze that works, without trying, to irrevocably attach itself to the listener at the chromosome level. Which doesn't tell you dick about what they sound like, which is... let's say repetitive, rhythmically propulsive, melodically and harmonically static music that nevertheless is vertically dense and ever-evolving texturally. Does that help? Alright, my friend Sarah astutely said "they should've been on that (tribute to the Oneida song) 'Sheets of Easter' compilation"; last.fm compares them to Sun Araw and Gary War; and several publications have drawn lines to Blues Control and Naked on the Vague; all of these bands do ring in sympathy with Fabulous Diamonds.

Fabulous Diamonds are actually Nisa Venerosa and Jarrod Zlatic, drummer/singer and keyboardist/saxophonist, respectively. They've been at this game since about 2007, when they released a 7" on Nervous Jerk, & Mistletone Records and toured the U.S. with longtime FMU faves Psychedelic Horseshit. By 2008, they'd signed with Philadelphia stalwarts Siltbreeze, who have so far released 2 full-lengths by the band - a self-titled slab o'wax, and a CD called "II" (song titles have yet to enter the picture, and we’re not holding our breath).

In October, they played our Record Fair. We recorded it. Here's the first song.

Tony Coulter here, with another set of waveforms and pixels. This time 'round, all the featured musicians are still active, and have things like Web sites and MySpace pages. Their music can -- and should -- be ordered from them. By contrast, the images at the end are mostly things I clipped out of magazines eons ago; these have lapsed into anonymity, due to my inferior record-keeping.

November 10, 2010

The details haven't unraveled yet. Maybe they won't for half a century. But I can sit here now and reasonably speculate that the vast, interconnected network of free-music blogs—the exploration of which is the point and pleasure of these weekly Motherlode posts—is nothing more than a CIA front.

Ever since I ditched my old dial-up for a high-speed Internet connection and started downloading MP3s, I have been gorging myself on the cornucopia of free music available across the relentlessly proliferating blogosphere. For three solid years now, I have been dashing headlong from one site to the next, Hoovering up external-hard-drive-bloating quantities of treasures, rarities and unheard wonders. But not once during this nonstop indulgence have I stopped to reflect on the old adage, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Well, I've just been chilled by that bracing splash of reality after reading an old article in the UK newspaper The Independent about the CIA's global propaganda campaign to nurture and promote Abstract Expressionist art in the 1950s and '60s. (That this 15-year-old article—by Frances Stonor Saunders, who later produced the book Who Paid the Piper: The CIA and the Cultural Cold War—has just gone viral is, one imagines, related to the new exhibition mounted at MoMA called "Abstract Expressionist New York.") In her article (and presumably her book, which I haven't read) Saunders's advances the notion that the CIA's support for abstract expressionism was a cold-war era attempt to win the hearts and minds of emerging and non-aligned nations over whom the U.S. was competing with the Soviet Union.

A more appealing theory, recently suggested to me by film scholar Marc Greene, is that the CIA was attempting to squelch the burgeoning popularity of left-leaning artists like Ben Shahn and Diego Rivera by promoting overtly apolitical artists. Extrapolating this more Marxist reading of CIA meddling in cultural affairs, it seems to me that the security apparatus of the United States has a vested interest in seducing creative and otherwise politically active segments of the populace into becoming insular shut-ins, immobilized by the siren call of free music on the Internet. If that is indeed the case, then Mining the Audio Motherlode ought to be receiving a weekly stipend from the suits in Langley, VA.

Our TownshipThis last of a string of audacious releases for Steeplechase, 1985's "Angolian Cry" was the last recording bassist Johnny Mbizo Dyani made as a leader (he collapsed and died on stage in Sweden a year later). Twenty years earlier, Dyani, along with his Blues Notes band mates, ditched his native South Africa for the burgeoning free jazz scene in Europe. The piano-less quartet heard here also features Bahamian trumpeter Harry Beckett, with whom Dyani played in the many tentacled, London-based joy machine Brotherhood of Breath, Dutch-Congolese woodwind maestro John Tchicai, and dynamic American drummer Jabali Billy Hart.

SanctiphoniusSister Rosetta Tharpe release a number of highly popular singles for Decca in 1951, the same year she staged her own wedding during a concert at Washington D.C.'s Griffith Stadium. (It is said she signed a contract with her managers binding her to find someone to marry in time for the heavily promoted show.)

Metal Machine MusicThe most widely known baleganjur bands are the marching gamelan troupes that perform while on the move. (Way back when, this music accompanied armies into battle to terrify the opposition.) Other purveyors of baleganjur music perform in a more sedentary format, producing ideal music for cleansing temples of evil spirits and for cremation ceremonies (or, for discount both simultaneously?).

Mahatma in HandOriginally formed in 1948 as a living tribute to the recently assassinated Mohandas K. Ghandi, this society of Candomblé drummers based in the Bahian city of Salvador has grown in recent years to involve an informal membership of more than 14,000 adherents. Rather incongruously, the gaudily attired carnivalistas of Filhos de Ghandy based the look of their outfits on the costume worn by the title character in the Cary Grant-Douglas Fairbanks Jr. film Gunga Din.

November 09, 2010

Kavus Torabi must be a very busy man. Throughout the 90's he fronted the brilliant London based Monsoon Bassoon, and in the last decade split his time between the North Sea Radio Orchestra, Chrome Hoof, his own group Knifeworld, Guapo, and The Mediaeval Baebes... not to mention having a spot in the line-up of his childhood heroes, the unstoppable Cardiacs.

Sadly, Tim Smith, the leader of the Cardiacs, suffered a stroke on June 25th, 2008, which has lead the band to go into an indefinite hiatus. A Tim Smith tribute album, Leader of the Starry Skies, is set for a November release on Torabi's label, Believers Roast, and will include performances from Knifeworld, Max Tundra, Andy Partridge of XTC, and Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson.

Kavus Torabi is still very active in performing music, however, fronting the awesome Knifeworld, whose Buried Alone: Tales of Crushing Defeat surely includes some of the coolest progressive-psychedelic-metal-pop-rock this side of Voivod.

I was able to interview Mr. Torabi about Knifeworld, Leader of the Starry Skies, and his race with Max Tundra via email. Check it out after the jump.

November 08, 2010

On Monday evening, British comedian Chris Morris will be the special guest on Too Much Information with Benjamen Walker. Join them as they talk about Morris's new film Four Lions, a satire about suicide bombers (cowritten with Peep Show creators Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain). 11/8, from 6 to 7 PM.

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Immediately afterward, DJ/Rupture hosts guests Julianne Escobedo Shepherd and Dapwell. Shepherd, writer/journalist and editor at The FADER, will be talking about her taste in dance music and divas, and playing select tunes. (For the curious, some articles of hers can be seen on the blog Cowboyz 'n' Poodles.) Dapwell of Das Racist and other projects will also be on hand to comment. On Mudd Up! Monday 11/8, from 7 to 8 PM.

Thursday night at midnight, Wm. Berger presents a live set from Philadelphia's Heavy Medical. Their Threats EP is available here; they also have shows upcoming at Death By Audio (11/10) and Party Expo (11/18). Tune in to My Castle of Quiet 11/12 from midnight to 3 AM for more violent, infectious noise/metal excitement.

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On Friday, Put the Needle on the Record with Billy Jam features visits from legendary rapper Schoolly D and rising-star rapper/producer Erk Tha Jerk. Schoolly D, a presence in gangster hip-hop since long before the term "gangsta rap" was coined, became famous for referencing gang themes in the record "P.S.K. What Does It Mean" in 1985. He has produced music for the films of Abel Ferrara and, most recently, Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. West Coast newcomer Erk Tha Jerk releases his debut album, Nerd's Eye View, this week. 11/12, from 3 to 6 PM.

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On Saturday morning, songwriting great Chip Taylor returns to Michael Shelley's show. Taylor, writer of such #1 hits as "Angel of the Morning," "Wild Thing," and "Try (Just a Little Bit Harder)," will talk with Michael about his new release The New Bye and Bye, which compiles the best of his work with Carrie Rodriguez. Listen on 11/13, from 11 AM to 1 PM, for the interview.

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And on Saturday evening, Rob Weisberg and friends will recount some of what happened this year at WOMEX, the annual expo that is world music's version of CMJ or SXSW. The festival took place in Copenhagen on October 27 - 31. On Transpacific Sound Paradise of 11/13, from 6 to 9 PM, Rob will be joined by editor Tom Pryor of the National Geographic World Music website and Oliver Conan, proprietor of the club and record label Barbès, to share the news.

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Have you ever heard this version of "16 Tons," sung by Noriel Vilela, in Portuguese? I just did -- last night on Monica's show (just after the German "City of New Orleans"). It made me glad and I hope you like it too.

November 06, 2010

Halloween weekend has passed us, and I had to update you on my exploits at The Chiller Theatre Expo! Check their website, as many fans contribute their own photos-my interests may not be the same as yours! I got my Paul Revere and the Raiders- Greatest Hits LP signed by Mark Lindsay (at right)! There was an I Dream of Jeannie reunion that I did not partake in, but had to walk through and take a look at Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman and Bill Daily. I also did get to meet Richard Roundtree (photo below), Patricia Quinn- photo below (Magenta from Rocky Horror), Zacherley the Cool Ghoul, Ernie Hudson, Patty Duke, and Gomez Addams himself-- John Astin! He and I had a lovely conversation about headstands; here's what he told me..."I was always pretty good at doing them, so whenever the story called for it, I just popped up and did one. Every so often if I was tired or not feeling 100% I would have them put one of those donut shaped pillows under the carpet, but for the most part, I did all my headstands without a worry." He said it had been awhile since he'd done one, but wouldn't rule out ever doing one again, "never say never, there's no fun in that!" He is heavily associated with the John's Hopkins Theatre Department in Baltimore, and Mr. Astin performs a one man Edgar Allan Poe show from time to time that I have not gotten a chance to see, but would love to. Keep your eyes peeled for this guy, upside down, or right side up! Below is a YouTube clip of him reading Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" a couple of years ago. I had Chiller originator Kevin Clement on the Fun Machine a couple of weeks ago because Chiller celebrated it's 20th anniversary this year, check the archive here- and here's a pic of the cake!

I was also thrilled to see that one of the sharks from JAWS was there, and proceeded to ham it up... you're welcome!